CMSF Marines review up at IGN

[Battlefront.com]

GSX,

SF feels and plays like it was designed for RTS, so why not give it a more RTS like interface? His idea about grouping units may not be all that bad in certain circumstances.

Oddly enough, I just got done writing up something based on this very topic What prompted my comments was a suggestion to "borrow" something from an RTS game. Specifically, certain audio cues to alert the player of big events. It wasn't intended for this Forum, but I'll post it here since it is relevant:

Because it would be going off all the time In RTS games forces tend to stay separated for the most part, then clash in more or less winner-take-all fights. The player may have one of these going on at a time. CM, on the other hand, basically has combat going on throughout the battle. And if it doesn't, then there's not much of a problem with situational awareness because a little firefight or two isn't important AND you already do get enough cues about it now so that you can see it going.

Where CM players start to fall down is when things are too widely dispersed and also diverse. Single encounters can kill/incapacitate critical units quite easily. Units that can't be respawned. In RTS games units tend to stay 100% functional until their health bar is full depleted which gives you time to figure out what's going on before units are eliminated and the battle lost. And if they are eliminated, it's not that big of a deal because you just make more and try again. CM can hinge on one encounter that is decided in the first few tens of seconds, which doesn't give a player much time to react.

Finally, in a game like [redacted] (and every RTS game I've ever played) individual units don't matter. You select a mass of them, give them a general set of instructions... then sit back and watch while making fairly minor changes. Flanking, pathing, terrain, etc. are almost non-issues. This lack of caring about the individuals means you can pay a lot more attention to the big picture. That's why they call them Real Time STRATEGY games instead of Real Time TACTICAL games Do you need to know range, terrain, and other things to the extent of CM? Not at all, which means there's less to pay attention to at the tactical level which means even more brain power available for the big picture. The opposite is true for CM.

In short...

You have to keep in mind the differences between the two games and picture what an idea will be like in the other game, not just how it works in its native environment. For example, user assigned unit groups is something that works well in both game environments. When I think of how audio cues work in a RTS environment I just don't see it working in a positive way in the CM environment. It's not because it's a bad idea, it's just something that doesn't appear to fix situational awareness issues within CM and, IMHO, could make things a little worse.

Basically, there are some UI things in RTS games that would be very nice to have in CM. In fact, some of them have been on the drawing board for 4 years. But there are other UI things which work great for RTS that would absolutely not work in a game like CM. Vice versa, some things that are critical to CM are completely unnecessary, even harmful, in an RTS game. Which makes sense because CM is not a RTS game, therefore they need to be handled differently.

Steve

[Spindry69]

It could do with some things that RT games have. Any of the following:

An automatic jump to an engaged unit, Ive seen that in RTS. It would get round the problem that you may be concentrating in one area and forget whats going on in others.

Assigning a number to a task group on larger maps. This would allow you to move a group of vehicles and Inf around to contact, say a couple of platoons and a few vehicles in each group.

A minimap showing the disposition of your forces which you can click on to jump to a platoon etc, this would aide your overall sight picture as a battlefield commander. This minimap exists now if you zoom out far enogh, so why not have it reproduced for RT games.

A true Mouse heavy management, clicking a unit or group of units brings up options for movement and fire etc.

Just some thoughts though...

These would certainly make RT more manageable.

I especially like the mouse click on a unit brings up an on screen menu idea.

In other RT games you can set triggers that pauses the action. Triggers such as unit is under attack, unit has reached it's destination or enemy spotted. Ufo Afterlight is very good in ths regard.

I tend to avoid large battles, they just seem like too much effort trying to manage. I know this is partly a discipline thing. Pausing often to watch over all your troops, but some of the ideas above could go a long way to easing the effort required in RT and making the game more enjoyable.

[Webwing]

…which I don't really understand. The Objectives thing is one ...

Steve

I think I understand what he is talking about actually. It´s somehow related to why people like QBs so much. You know the forces, you know the objectives, you know the size of the map. Fast, simple and clear. Jump into the battle and have fun.

In the campaign missions and in most missions for that matter you have to read a briefing, usually 2 pages long with tiny text. It´s full of military jargon and background story. And sometimes you need to read it twice to really understand what you are supposed to do. And when were the reinforcements arriving again?

I imagine this is paradise for hard core wargamers and it does immerse you in the story. But if you want to just jump into the action and have some fun this can be very tedious.

Personally I usually enjoy them and actually learn quite a bit about military organization with the good briefings. But sometimes I´m for instance testing or just tired and just want to jump into the action

Bigger typeface is mandatory in my opinion. Second is a summary that would go like this for example:

• You have 35 men, 2 M1A1s, 3 Bradleys.
  -
• Reinforcements arrive from the south east 15 min into the game: 20 men on trucks
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• Enemy: probably around 60 men from the Republican Guard plus a few BMPs
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• Objective: Occupy obj1, obj2 and obj3
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• You will lose the battle even if you occupy all objectives but have too many casualties(more than 20%).
  

I know some will think this is blasphemy but from what I read around here a lot of people are just looking to have fun, first and foremost. With a realistic military flavor of course.

You can still have all the story and the briefing with all the militarily accurate language and all. But if you are in the middle of the battle and want to remember what was it you needed to do you click on the briefing button and check this summary. Simple and easy. But this is up to each mission designer to do. After all it is his mission and he either want to do it or not.

But I think this way you please both the hardcore and the more casual player.

From what I understand the reviewer wouldn´t have been lost if there was a summary like that. Or maybe I completely missed the point! Again!!!

[Jak170]

I think that SF is pretty much a lone game in sense of how it functions. True, it would be categorized under RTS but really, of all the RTSs I have played (a lot), none are quite like it. Never have I had to deal with troops panic and cry like babies on the field. Never did I have to actually bail out troops from vehicles stuck in the mud. Never have I ever needed to run my troops back to the dead/wounded to try and steal their weapons and then beam them away. Its awesome. Now with this game, the interface could be improved but to resemble a standard RTS like Red Alert??? I don't think it so.

A mini-map as described by GSX would be highly welcome for me. as would the assigning of units to custom groups. Things like what Steve quoted would be disastrous for CM.

Anyhoo. After seeing the rating given by the reviewer on IGN, I thought he would pick CM apart for major things but after reading the review, I was left scratchin my head thinking "this is it?... He have it a 6 because of that?"

[c3k]

I'd like labels on objectives: not the label the scenario designer creates, like "Enemy HQ Building" (although that is nice and adds flavor), but rather the label which tells me what to do with it: CAPTURE AND HOLD; DESTROY; SEARCH; etc.

I leave the objectives toggle on. Frankly, I don't know why some are green and some are yellow. I _think_ the yellow objectives mean I should destroy them. I'd like labels. Hey, if I'm NOT supposed to destroy something, put a PRESERVE label on 'em (as well as a friendly base color, like powder blue or pink, or bunny yellow).

In short, communicating the objective goal could be improved.

Regards,

Ken

[MarkEzra]

I'd like labels on objectives: not the label the scenario designer creates, like "Enemy HQ Building" (although that is nice and adds flavor), but rather the label which tells me what to do with it: CAPTURE AND HOLD; DESTROY; SEARCH; etc.

I leave the objectives toggle on. Frankly, I don't know why some are green and some are yellow. I _think_ the yellow objectives mean I should destroy them. I'd like labels. Hey, if I'm NOT supposed to destroy something, put a PRESERVE label on 'em (as well as a friendly base color, like powder blue or pink, or bunny yellow).

In short, communicating the objective goal could be improved.

Regards,

Ken

Your first point should be handled in the scen notes at the very least. Play the scen "Bad Moon Rising" for an example of objective explanation.

As to the yellow/green color. When both sides share an objective but the objectives for one is shaped (larger/smaller) differently, the yellow color shows up. I try to be very careful with overlapping shared objectives.

[salwon]

Slightly off topic, but one of my favorite missing-the-point lines in a review came in one for Take Command: Second Manassas where the reviewer complained that there weren't enough unit types.

Objective labels (beyond the designer) are a good idea, but there has to be a way to turn them off.

[c3k]

MarkEzra; thank you for the yellow/green explanation.

Agreed that the scenario notes can handle the role of explaining objectives. How much slicker if the color of the objective base communicated that information? The player wouldn't have to break the immersion to go back to the briefing for the information; a glance at the ground color tells all (with verbiage as an additional toggle).

Red; destroy. Yellow; touch. Green; capture and hold at scenario end.

(Edited to add: isn't it cool that CMSF allows these different kinds of terrain objectives? Lest I be mistaken for an endless criticizer, v1.10 has elevated this game to a very high level.)

Just part of my endless quest for a slick interface.

Regards,

Ken

[Thomm]

That user review is harsh.

Banned ex-beta-tester Dorosh out trying to hurt BFC for the sake of it!

What else is new?

Best regards,

Thomm

PS: According to Dorosh, CM:BB gets 6 points for graphics, while CM:SF gets 5.5! It will not get more objective than that!

[Canada Guy]

I know you are only joking but given the times that each game was produced, I would give CMBB graphics a 9 and CMSF about a 7. This does not mean that CMBB is a great game graphically in 2008 but at the time it was fairly cutting edge (considering they once thought of building it as a 2D top down game, the result is quite beautiful).

CMSF is good, but it does not equal "Crysis" graphically, nor should it, but CMBB was the "Crysis" of its age. They have instead spent their time fixing the game engine and AI and have done a good job. I will have to see if "Bagration" will let me put aside CMBB and enjoy the Ostfront goodness in it's CMx2 incarnation.

But really, if graphics were so important to most of us, would we play CM in any form. And for some reason, I find CMSF et al kind of sterile. I actually prefer the "Larry, Moe and Curly" to the 1to1 representation in CMSF. CMBB lets me suspend my disbelief with its simple graphics but CMSF is too real to suspend my disbelief but not real enough for immersion.

This is also neither here nor there. I know I will still buy CMSF and all its modules, as well as the next game and the next... There are very few comparable games that cater to my tastes.

[Kwazydog]

CMSF is good, but it does not equal "Crysis" graphically, nor should it, but CMBB was the "Crysis" of its age.

Canada Guy, whilst I do think CMBBs graphics were perfectly suitable for the genre at the time, I think you might want to check out some of the other releases around that time Most games had used dynamic lighting for some time at that point for instance, whereas we didnt. In my opinion we were somewhat behind the 8 ball at CMBBs release, and dated by CMAKs.

The cool part about the new engine is that we can easily expand on the visuals whereas that wasnt possible with previous games.

Dan

[Battlefront.com]

I agree with KwazyDog completely. When compared against the best of the best games of the day, CMBB's graphics were very inferior. That wasn't a surprise to us since the graphics engine was written about 4 years earlier so that it could run on a 4MB VRAM card The only thing we did to improve the graphics in CMBB was to increase the poly counts of the tanks and to increase the resolution of the graphics. This is one of the primary reasons we abandoned the CMx1 game engine... it was woefully out of date by 2002, it would have been a joke by 2006 or later.

CM:SF's graphics are definitely not up the standards of companies with literally MILLIONS of Dollars to spend on graphics development, but that's hardly surprising now is it? Give us a $10,000,000 art budget and we'll knock your socks off!

However, both game series suffer from the disadvantage of needing to do things that other games don't need to do. There are so many optimizations and shortcuts we could take if we the inherent nature of the game were different.

Steve

[Paper Tiger]

I think it's a crying shame that vehicle pathfinding took a hit with v1.1. I thought it was actually really good at v1.08 and I'm confident that it will get back to that standard when the v1.11 patch arrives. I guess BFC just have some bad karma with reviews.

However, having spent a load of time working on campaigns across drastically different versions of the game myself (Hasrabit was developed across v1.05 to v1.08 and there were some HUGE changes made there), I'm not really sure why BFC dropped the ball on that one. It's not DIFFICULT creating a campaign, just a LOT of work. And they had whole team of guys working on creating the scenarios. But so what. What's done is done and they're working on ways to make it easier in the future.

Anyways, I'm sure that CM:Normandy will blow everybody's socks off when it eventually arrives. No doubt it will have it's own problems but some folks just want to see negative all the time and others will see the good and enjoy it.

[Webwing]

It's not DIFFICULT creating a campaign, just a LOT of work. And they had whole team of guys working on creating the scenarios. But so what. What's done is done and they're working on ways to make it easier in the future.

Paper Tiger,

You´ve done a fantastic campaign yourself so you know what you are talking about.

Yes it´s not difficult. But even creating single scenarios is not difficult. But many find it complicated. Look at the number of people that actually do it.

But difficult or not, like you said, there was a whole team and working with the developers. So from this logic it should have been a lot faster and better than a single guy doing it. But there were some major differences.

Do you have any idea how many beta versions of the 1.10 patch there were during the processes of making the campaign? Loads and loads. This was not any patch, it introduced some big changes to the game.

Also the TO&E was being tweaked and changed during this process. You make your plans, test them and then you have to re-import the core units due to some change. You balance the mission and have to change due to some changes introduced in the patch. This was being done all the time. It is very taxing on the people involved.

As for having a whole team this is great but it also means you have many different ways of doing things.

Every change had to be synchronized, all had to be using the same patch version. Not all were available at the same time.

This is no justification for the problems but it does help understand the process. I´m not the right person to justify it anyway!

When you are working with one version of the game, with a fixed TO&E and all by yourself you have total control over every aspect of the process.

It does take longer but you know exactly where you are at any point.

All agree the process needs to be improved though, there is no doubt about it. But to say: one guy can do it so, how come a whole team had trouble? That is too simplistic.

I´ve done a camping alone and I´ve witnessed the process of doing one with a team. So it´s not like I´m just doing some guess work here.

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[Paper Tiger]

Hi Webwing

we have a saying in Scotland, 'Too many cooks spoil the broth'. Perhaps this applies in this instance as well.

Anyway, I have no desire to criticize other people's work or pretend that I know better just because I've done one campaign. It's simply enough to know that this particular glitch won't ever bite them on the ass again.

[Canada Guy]

For some reason I thought CMBB was a 2000 release. At that time you had "Red Alert 2" and "Escape from Monkey Island" which would not exactly be considered cutting edge today. CMBB definitely beats them. By 2002 though, CMx1 was a little long in the tooth graphically.

Now though, CMSF feels like a step back aesthetically. It may just be the terrain though. It all looks so depressingly similar and dull. It looks like my city in February with snow, snow and more snow with no colour no matter where you look. The forests and grass of northern Europe (East and West) I think will make this game more graphically appealing.

I do have a question though. The game engine has been built and set (with updates) but is there room to expand graphically with each new game family? Or will the graphics be of this quality/resolution for the entire life of this game engine?

[Battlefront.com]

If you look back at reviews of CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK almost all of them (even the oens that gave it a very high rating) made critical, even insulting, remarks about the state of the graphics. For the most part the criticism of CM:SF's graphics is far lighter and usually about performance rather than the look itself. Most of the performance issues have been cleared up now.

The fairer comparison to make is between CMAK to CM:SF. There's no comparison IMHO, especially with villages and cities. The greater variety of terrain types in CM:SF make for much richer open areas as well as urban. The large terrain tile size and clunky terrain mesh of CMx1 is also easily noticeable. When we go to a temperate environment then you can rightly compare CMx2 to CMBO/BB. After all, when something is barren you rarely find someone calling it "as desolate as a lush green forest" now do you?

One reason CMx2 will never look as good as the current batch of big title games (besides them spending millions more than us) is that they usually have custom made maps. By custom made I mean everything is tailored, including the buildings shapes and all the little details, to that one particular map. Which is why they don't have a terrain editor like we do. It's like the difference between Steel Panthers and Close Combat. CC's maps looked a ton better, but the user couldn't make new ones. There's always tradeoffs.

Steve

[Webwing]

It´s really funny. I lost count of how many times I heard "that´s just eye candy!". It seems wargamers can´t decide what they want. Eye candy or realism?

The graphics is not the strongest aspect of CM x1 or x2 when compared to current games, but it sure is the best looking wargame ever. It´s philosophy, it´s concept and calculations make it a true wargame. What it did was to bring all this from hexbased to 3D. And it did it beautifully in my opinion.

It has the best of both worlds. Well, if not the best in terms of graphics, it gets very close.

Comparing CMx1 to CM:SF is complicated because CMx1 did something nobody expected and went a way no one had gone before. CM:SF, follows that path. But the path now is not something that will surprise people anymore. Some expect a breakthrough with every release. This is just not realistic.

As for not being able to make maps for Close Combat, well I did several myself. But it was a very complex process. You had to literally paint the whole map in Photoshop. Then you had to use user made tools to edit elevations, terrain etc. The you had to use a Hex editor to code in Assembly language each roof. A bit of a puzzle and it took some time!

Talking about a more recent game which has excelent graphics: Total War series. There is an editor for terrain and to plan orders for the AI. Anyone has tried it? Terrain editor is ok but trying to make AI move and camera go into place, all with code is a bit of a nightmare and totally unsupported by the developers. Very, very limited.

I guess that´s why I appreciate the editor in CM:SF so much. It does a lot and very well. And for little work compared to others around.

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[Lurker765]

CMx1 got great reviews for it's graphics. For example:

http://archive.gamespy.com/reviews/november02/combatmissionbbpc/

"Here, the units are beautiful 3D depictions of the actual vehicles and infantry being represented, moving and fighting on a 3D map. This is the first area in which the improvements in Barbarossa to Berlin are evident."

or from

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/combatmissionbtb/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;read-review

"the foliage is more complex, the textures are sharper, the special effects like fire and smoke don't look so homegrown, and the vehicle models feature more detail and animation. You'll spend more time getting in close to study the replays just because they look so good. With the possible exception of its stiff little infantry models, Combat Mission now looks like a big-budget game."

or Computer Gaming world's:

"With a superb game system, unrivaled detail, great graphics for the genre, and outstanding multiplayer, CMBB is more than enough to please any wargamer."

etc. CMx1 was not reviewed anywhere nearly as bad as you remember. It was LOVED by the critics and fans and the graphics were praised for the time. CMAK graphics did not get as good a review, but that is because they didn't change much from CMBB despite time going by.

[aleader]

Don't disagree with the review at all really. I've had several issues with campaign missions not ending even though I've taken all of the objectives and wiped out virtually all of the enemy. Desert graphics are also blah, and I'm sick of them. TOW 2 looks to do the desert graphics right. Maybe that one will be more interesting. Yes, yes, I know it's a different engine, the first CM2 game, etc. Saying that doesn't change the campaign or the graphics though now does it. I am very hopeful that the next game makes this one look like CMBO...

[Paper Tiger]

Sorry guys but I just don't understand what you're on about when you complain about the quality of the graphics in the game. It's not a FPS game and there's a hell of a lot more going on under the hood that in those games too. It's a wargame first and if your kit's up to running it with all the graphics settings maxxed out, then it can look beautiful too when viewed down with your troops.

Further, there are quite a few missions for CMSF that are not just sandy desert bashes. Even if they're set in Syria, which isn't all desert, scenariuo designers often set their missions in reasonably green terrain. I'd say about half of my maps look Balkan or Eastern European.

BTW, that's not MY map. That's one of Pete Wenman's rural maps which I think look quite good. Some of the lighting effects are much better than I'd expect from a game like this.

So please, no more calls to make the game look more like CMBO. I liked CMBO and CMBB but they look shocking nowadays when compared to CMSF.

[Lurker765]

Paper Tiger,

No one is calling for the game to look more like CMBO. The argument is that CMx1 graphics were fine for their time. CMSF graphics are not as fine for their time comparitively since the competition is much tougher in this area. Reviewers have mentioned this in complaints about murky views from higher levels as well as frame rate problems.

The argument is that trenches, foxholes, etc were able to be placed by the defender where they wished and not spotted on turn 1 by the attacker. Much better options for strategy and tactics. This is why there was some outcry about sandbags in CMx1 that were spotted at the start and not able to be moved -- a precursor of things to come I guess. Given the choice of better looking sandbags that could not be moved or hidden vs mediocre looking trenches that could be placed anywhere and hidden by FOW guess what almost all scenario designers and players chose?

I don't particularly enjoy defending in positions that someone else chooses for me in spots that are known to the attacker from the very beginning of the game. It takes the fun out of the experience of being a commander.

But, maybe that is just me and I can only vote with my pocketbook. Make a game I like and I'll support it. Make one that isn't fun for me and I won't.

[hoolaman]

MarkEzra; thank you for the yellow/green explanation.

Agreed that the scenario notes can handle the role of explaining objectives.

The real problem is they generally don't.

In Cmx1 you always knew how the points would break down, because they were simple and consistent. Big flag was 300 points or whatever it was, casualties make up a certain percentage etc.

The new objectives are great but often the designer goes for the military jargon and a good story and forgets about telling you what you have to do to win the GAME. I'd much rather see the game interface tell you which points are available where (except hidden ones of course) similar to the end screen but at the start. And you don't get a sense of what you have to deny to your opponent either, whereas before you knew they had the same amount of points on offer as you do, a flag denied them was points for you and points away from them. It tends to make the game feel a lot less gamelike when you and your opponent are playing to different rules and you never are quite sure what they are.

I'd like to see a return to standard points markers like the big flags and little flags, although obviously they don't have to be flags. That way you know exactly the relative values of objectives.

[Webwing]

Paper Tiger,

No one is calling for the game to look more like CMBO. The argument is that CMx1 graphics were fine for their time. CMSF graphics are not as fine for their time comparitively since the competition is much tougher in this area. Reviewers have mentioned this in complaints about murky views from higher levels as well as frame rate problems.

Although this is directed at PT I´d like to add 2 cents.

When CMBO come out it was mostly compared to other wargames and the graphics were praised since most wargames were either hexbased or the 3d was very poor.

Now CM:SF is being compared to the latest RTS and Shooters! :eek:

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[Webwing]

hoolaman:

Agreed that the scenario notes can handle the role of explaining objectives.

The real problem is they generally don't.

The new objectives are great but often the designer goes for the military jargon and a good story and forgets about telling you what you have to do to win the GAME.

I agree. This is up to each designer though. I guess we could have the best of both worlds if the designer included some clear summary. I usually forget that myself when making my own scenarios! I get so absorbed by the story and all that I forget to see it from the players perspective sometimes.

As for the flags and stuff, I know you said you don´t mean to came back to real flags but something to have the same functionality. I´m not sure what would be the best solution for that though.

One thing to remember when comparing things that were present in CMx1 games and not on CM:SF is that the first was a metaphor of a board game.

Soldiers and tanks were mere placeholders, like pieces on a board game. All was abstracted, so what you saw was just a guide to what was really happening under the hood. Those thick red lines connecting waypoints, the big flags, the soldiers that could take the size of giants, etc., all that was perfect for an analogy of a board game.

With CM:SF the metaphor is a real world battle field. Some things that were fine for a board game just don´t fit here anymore. Although some concepts could be kept in a different form.

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